Moon Law: Short Story
by wtfisaverage
Summary: What happens when an old wolf loves a young girl who loves a farm boy..
1. Chapter 1

Prologue: Given to the Moon 

Gaia walked the squalling child to the river.

Gaia was too old to be this sad. For years, she practiced voodoo and studied the patterns of nature. Where had it gotten her? Eighteen years ago, she'd been run out of town. Forced to leave her young daughter and robbed of her young love. Now, her beautiful daughter was dead and her grandchild…

Her grandchild had been robbed of her promise before it had a chance to flower.

"I did it for her," Charles, Gaia's estranged husband had cried. Gaia had arrived earlier in the night to the small cottage haunted already by loss. Dropping the bag of herbs she'd prepared to help her daughter give birth, Gaia rushed to the bed to see her daughter lifeless next to the swathed screaming ball that was her grandchild.

"They took her," he sobbed over his empty jar, "they hurt her. All because of her beauty. I didn't want that happening to our grand baby. I couldn't let it happen," he said turning away to leave the room. Both Gaia and Charles had grieved over the rape that left their daughter pregnant. Charles was haunted by his inability to protect his child. Her color, her face, her features… so many factors left her defenseless. When Christine pushed her baby out with the last of her strength and the light faded from her eyes, Charles held the newborn. Amber eyes passed down from her great-grandmother stared up at him. From the curve of her cheek to the tiny swaths of hair coiling wetly against her head, Charles could see the promise of her mother's beauty in her. Swallowing thickly, he laid the baby next to her mother. Grabbing a jar of moonshine from the table in the corner, Charles drank fast. Shoulders slumped, he walked across the room to the chest against the wall and retrieved the iron inside. Placing it in the fire, he turned it until heat made it red and hot. Another drink helped him crossed to the bed. A prayer helped him place the iron against the baby's face.

Rushing into the cabin, Gaia picked up the baby. "Lord, no." The baby's face was blistered and darkened by angry burns. Her young flesh smarted and was raised in desperate welts. The child's hurt echoed in her cries. Gaia vowed to deal with Charles later, but first came this child.

It took her some time to get everything she needed, but she was resourceful. She could not lose this moon.

"Go on and cry child. Cry out your pain and we will try to fix it. You lost yo' mama and will never know a dada. You lost your promise and that injustice is too much fo' fate."

Gaia called upon her powers and walked to the full moon reflected in the river. "Hear me, Ami," she said looking up at her celestial friend. "An' hear her motherless cry. Beauty be her name and her legacy. It be her burden. It be her curse. I know you can't heal it, but you can take her under your love."

Robes trailing behind her, Gaia crossed barefoot to the middle of the river where the moon's reflection was most powerful. With the baby hitched on her shoulder, Gaia cut a line down her palm and turning clockwise dropped her blood onto the now rippling circle of the moon's reflection. A circle of light sparked and then glowed around her encasing the moon's reflection and erasing her shadow. Her request would be heard. Gaia whistled low into the night and beseeched the night, "Be ma' voice." The wind answered, twisting and wrapping about her, blowing into her long grey streaked dreads. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her bundle. Undoing the tie, she let her collected herbs and hairs fall into the now howling wind. "Be ma' arms." Calling upon her power and holding the baby, Gaia laid a kiss on the still crying child. "So it be said, mon ami," she said to the waiting moon. Gaia bent at the waist and placed the child in the river. Humming softly, she let the coolness soothe the baby's hurts before gently holding her under the water. Chants and prayers left the old woman's lips as she felt her wind search for the answer. Then in the distance, a lone wolf's cry answered her call. "That will do, Ami" she said. "That will do." The water churned with moon magic fed by the connection between Gaia and fate. The circle glowed as her magic tried to escape its confines. Ever greedy, her magic tried reaching for more, but with the will of her love Gaia kept it contained and focused on her grandchild. Only the river and its underwater occupants giving the circle of light a wide berth felt the pulse. It beat once as nature shifted and accepted a new offering into her fold. Opening her eyes, the old woman swayed as the circle disintegrated and her shadow reappeared. Pulling her bundle from the river, Gaia smiled as a sopping wet wolf cub with amber eyes writhed and nipped at her hands wanting to be closer. Enfolding the cub in her robes and accepting of the wet kisses against her chin, Gaia nodded at her lunar friend. "So it be, Ami. So it be."

* * *

His howl was rusty, Sam thought as he finished the note. Hundreds of years, he'd slept. His cavern keeping him safe tucked deep in the mountains. He'd traveled the world times over, his magicks and his moon kiss allowing him to age with the earth. After all, he was an old beast. Others called it a curse, but he considered it a blessing. He'd been freed to let the wildness inside him take shape.

Searing pain awoke him. The phantom burn across on his cheek jerked him from his slumber. But most disturbing of all was that he felt her. Her pain, her Inner, reaching out for him.

He swam up the mountain. Full of his will and magic, the dirt and stone were like water to him. As he rose, he passed the various bodies of his pack. Generations were buried. His legacy, his children. Their bones feeding him information: history, language, culture. The pack mind in this mountain was strong, geared toward one purpose. Survival. When he rose to his old den, he knew where and when he was, but he did not fully understand why until he caught the scent of the spell. Opening his senses, Sam heard the child's cry echo the cry in his mind. Needing to soothe the infant, he called his returning powers to him.

"I know you can't heal it," he heard the old witch say, "but you can take her under your love." Sam did not know love. He'd never done it or had it in all his years, but he knew magic. Sitting on his haunches, the old wolf bowed his majestic head and added flavoring to the old woman's spell. Merging his mind completely with the child's, Sam called her beast spark, the animal in all humans. Like all animals, this beast survived and endured. He shaped the animal in her: her limbs would be long and strong, her fur thick, her teeth and claws sharp, her senses acute. With a sharp bite of his foreleg, Sam sealed himself to her: "Blood of my blood," he thought to the young one, "flesh of my flesh. You are pack, girl. Never alone and never without. I troth to thee."


	2. Chapter 2

Moon Law: Short Story

Chapter 1

Pain ripped through Mercedes' body.

_Are you sure, child? _

The wind of her grandmother's voice ran through her mind asking if she wanted to go through with the sacrifice. Thinking of Artie, the human boy she loved, Mercedes knew she couldn't let him die.

She'd been too late to rescue him. When she arrived to his house, she saw him lying on the ground bleeding. The smell of sulfur burned her tender nostrils as she sniffed the wound in his chest. She gripped his shirt between her teeth, but she quickly figured she couldn't get him to the river on time. So she ran alone to the one place of power she knew.

Grandma Gaia had told her the story of her birth many times. She'd murmured to her how she'd asked the moon to give her a new body. Mercedes knew her body was her gift, her blessing from the elements.

She was willing to give it up if it would save Artie. When her grandmother had gone south for the Harvest Moon, Mercedes chose to stay because she was in love. She was lie-on-your-back, chase-your-own-tail, impossibly in love with a young boy who traded milk with her grandma. The youngest of three boys, Artie was all limbs. He was the weakest of the bunch. Curly haired with glasses and a crooked smile, he brought to life every protective instinct inside Mercedes. From the day he first stood on her porch to trade grain for milk, Mercedes wanted him. She followed him home and watched his house at night, kept him safe, marked her territory. She never approached him. Her frail love was scared of wolves.

He was hers though. She dreamed of him, dreamed of being human and having lips to kiss him and arms to hold him. She dreamed of teaching him to listen to the wind and showing him how to be strong. She knew they would be together.

She didn't know how to comprehend the smell that began at his house or the smoke constantly rising from his chimney. She wondered more than once at the strange men who came to his house and gave his brothers money. Crates of clinking glass filled with liquid left the house day and night. It didn't feel right. It certainly smelled wrong.

She'd been hunting for breakfast when she heard the shot. It rang throughout the forest upsetting birds. Instantly, she knew it was Artie. She ran to him.

Now, she ran to the river to make her trade. She ran to save her love.

Once there, she bit into her forepaw. Diving in, she swam to the center. Desperately, she tried to remember Gaia's words.

_Know what you want, child. The elements are fickle and do not like to interrupt the natural flow. Know what you want and be prepared to pay the price. _

_Help me, Grandmother_, she thought. Gazing at the moon, Mercedes felt for its tie deep within her. With her blood swirling around her, she bargained:

_All that I am, I give to save him._

She repeated it three times. As her body grew weak with the effort to stay afloat, she saw the sky begin to darken with clouds.

Her limbs throbbed and her skin itched. Each breath grew harder as she felt her body begin to stiffen.

_I'm sinking._

Water filled her lungs as she tried to move her legs and couldn't. Her bones cracked and expanded. Her fur melted away. As her muzzle shortened and her eyes lost focus, Mercedes heard a furious voice yell in her pain filled mind.

"What have you done?"

She knew no more.

* * *

After he saved Mercedes, Sam was going to kill her.

Over 300 years had passed since he last changed to human, but the change was quick. He jumped into the river as a wolf and swam underwater as a man. Swimming hard, he searched for her body. Long seconds went by until he finally saw her unconscious, changing form still twitching as her nerves accustomed themselves to a new length.

Grabbing her, he swam to the top. He would need herbs to heal her. Changing without magic was not only foolish, it could prove deadly.

Magic eased the transition and allowed the body a way to speed up the healing process. Without magic, the changed body went into shock. The skin bruised and tore in places where bones lengthened and grew for the first time. The muscles would have spasms. She would have to learn to use her new fingers and it would take time to relearn her senses. Her eyes would have to be retrained. Everything would hurt and Mercedes might actually wish she had died.

Laying her body on the ground, Sam placed his hand over her lungs. Wary of causing any more harm to her body, Sam said a small incantation to coax the water from her lungs.

"Breath of my breath" he said, leaning in to breath healing magic into her lungs. "Blood of my blood," he called to her heart asking it to beat.

_Slow_, he thought to her body commanding her organs to keep pace with his own. Satisfied with her breathing and pulse, Sam put aside his weariness to carry Mercedes up to his lair.

With her body over his shoulder, Sam's mind probed Mercedes' for answers. He would do his best to heal her. There was no question of that. Mercedes was pack. She was his responsibility, but worry ate at him.

Since her birth, the young wolf had never been too far from his thoughts or his sight. As the only member of his pack, she'd had his undivided attention in her early years. He watched her stumble and fall. Saw her learn how to run and watched her first kill. He was never out of range. He kept her safe and let her believe she was queen of the forest. He never approached her and made sure she never knew of his existence even when he had the urge to take her by the scruff and shake some sense into her.

Life had been tolerable until she grew into her 18th year. Fulfilling every promise nature blessed her with, Mercedes was magical.

She made him feel.

Her thoughts, her curiosity, her songs made him want the unknown. She made him aware of the long centuries and of his loneliness. She fired the yearning in him for a mate, for the run together and the cubs to carry on the pack.

She made him feel too much.

So, he hadn't known what she was doing. Since the last moon, he hadn't kept track of her movements and whereabouts… on purpose. He'd blocked the young wolf from his mental eye to protect her from him and the wants and needs he couldn't understand yet.

The sky warned him of the bad magic. Bad magic wasn't necessarily evil; it just went against nature's wishes. Sam searched for Mercedes mind. Her pain latched on to his mind almost crippling him. Frantically, Sam tried to stop the magic but the trade was complete.

Mercedes had given up her wolf form.

Now, Sam needed to know why.

The curly haired human boy crept into his thoughts. Images of the boy as he walked and tripped his way through life came to Sam. He saw Mercedes watching him and following him. Her longing for the boy choked Sam.

Looking away from her body on his shoulder, Sam struggled with his fury and disappointment. "This boy", he said aloud, "is why you would turn away from my gift and my pack? Was his life worth your own?"

_Yes. _

No louder than a whisper, her answer sounded in his brain.

With a sharp command, Sam sent her to sleep. Onward he climbed, refusing to feel, refusing to be hurt by her rejection.

"I will heal you, Mercedes. Then, we will see how far this love of yours will go."

A/N: Work in progress. I'm using this as a creative exercise. Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

**Moon Law, Chapter 2**

The smell of herbs woke Mercedes. Pain made her whimper as she struggled to catch her breath. She couldn't see. Her body felt like an open wound. She tried to turn her head and it felt like fire raced down her spine. Crying out in agony, Mercedes began to sob.

_Love hurts, Grandma_, she thought. She hadn't known that all of her longing and her dreams of Artie would lead to this. She hadn't known that her sacrifice would feel this brutal and unceasing; her body so unfamiliar and strange.

_You mustn't try to move yet_, said an unfamiliar voice in her head. _Your body is healing_, the voice continued, _and you have to be careful_.

Mercedes sensed another presence in the space with her. She tried to sniff for an identity, but her senses felt muted. Her nose didn't work properly.

_Who are you?_ She asked.

_You may call me Sam_, the voice said reluctantly, _I am a healer… of sorts. _

Male. She knew it for certain. _Where are we?_

_We are in my den atop the high mountain. You are safe here. _A cool cloth was placed on her head and strong hands soothed the protesting muscles in her neck. Words were whispered in the air above her. The sound dulled and muted as she strained to hear.

It was an incantation, the music of her childhood, Mercedes thought with pang of longing for Gaia. Sam had a nice voice from what she could hear.

"Sleep," Sam said close to her ear. "I have much work to do."

_Wait_, she thought to him as sleep pulled at her, _Artie... I have to see if Artie is alive.._

She had to hear it. She had to know her sacrifice wasn't in vain.

"Your boy lives to see another day," was Sam's begrudging answer.

* * *

Sam's hands were shaking. He studied Mercedes' body, mentally running through centuries of spells and magic that would heal her. She lay on his work bench, a mass of bruises and cuts and he did not know if he could heal her.

He did not know if he wanted to.

Blood of my blood. Flesh of my flesh. Never alone and never without. The day of her birth and her becoming a member of his pack he made that vow to her. When she gave up her form, she broke that covenant. She turned her back on him all for the sake of some boy.

It was intolerable. It was betrayal, but what maddened him the most was that he could not turn away from her. He could not leave her to die. Sam, who never needed anything from anyone, needed her to live.

Cursing at his foolishness, Sam stalked to the edge of his den. The moon's glaring light seeming to point back into the cave. "I don't know if I can save her," he said aloud to the celestial orb.

The silence taunted him. He looked down at the earth where drops of Mercedes' blood stained the rocks and earth.

Then he knew. He knew how to heal her, but it would require his own body. "How much will you take from me, young one? How much will be left of me when we are done?"

The power to heal Mercedes lay entrenched in the tie that bound them. Their blood. Their flesh. It was also in his ties to the earth around them. His pack that were buried in this earth.

Lifting Mercedes, he carried her to the farthest corner of his den. A natural window in the mountain allowed the moon to look down upon this earth and a small pool of water that floated nearby. Wolves in his pack came from all over the continent to lay here, to die here and continue the legacy. Their spirits kept the pack mind in this mountain strong. Their bodies made this mountain impenetrable.

He laid her down inside the pool of moonlight, half on the earth and halfway into the water.

Shifting only his hands, he allowed his claws to hang long from his fingertips. Staring at her, he wrapped his arms around himself and let his claws dig into his flesh. Down his arms, across his abdomen, and along the length of his thighs bloody stripes appeared.

Grabbing handfuls of earth enriched by his long dead pack, he smeared them across his body mixing blood and earth. Crossing to her, he lay beside her and brought her body close. Then, he moved them into the shallow pond where the paste covering his body colored the water.

Resting her head outside the pool, he held her close. Wrapping his arms around her and intertwining their legs, he tried to make sure their bodies touched as much as possible. The magic in his blood would heal him. The mixture of pack-earth and his blood in the water would heal her.

Lifting his hand, he smoothed her wild thick hair away from her face. Sam felt… vulnerable, open in a way that hurt. Physical pain was nothing. This concern and need for her to live was beyond anything he'd ever felt. He synced their bodies, so her heart and lungs would replicate his.

He was drained. He was scared. He moved his head until their noses touched and their lips brushed. "Mercedes," he whispered, "the core and the essence of my body and my power, I give to you. Heal, young one."

Sam closed his eyes and slept.

* * *

The sun woke Mercedes. Momentarily blinded by the blazing orifice, she covered her face with her hand. The she realized what she had done. Taking short breaths, she looked at her hand. They were like Gaia's, brown on one side and pale pink on the other. She touched part of her face. It was round and felt her cloud of hair. Looking down at her body, she was brown all over. Thick globes protruded from her chest. Her rounded belly and thatch of hair between… her legs. She had legs!

She was human.

Stiffly reaching behind her, she felt her bottom. Her tail was gone. Ask any wolf and they'll tell you, a good pelt is nice, long limbs are cute, but a wolf's pride is in its tail and hers was gone. It made sense in a way. Humans did not have tails, however, she missed hers. All of her wolf-self was gone.

She wanted to see her face.

Looking around, she spotted a pond about five feet away. _Can I walk?_ Mercedes brought her hands beneath her and tried to rise, but her legs were too shaky. _So, no walking yet, but I can crawl._ By excruciatingly slow increments, she inched her way to the water. Finally, she made it.

Taking deep breaths, she peered into the rippling water willing the pond to be still.

There she was. Her face was mostly round and earth toned, plump lips, and button nose. Yet, there was something wrong with the left side of her face. The skin was shiny and scarred, raised in angry welts along her cheek and down her chin.

_I'm ugly. I'm a monster. _Tears ran down her cheeks as loss and hopelessness curdled her dreams. _Who could ever love someone who looks like me? _


End file.
